TORONTO — The federal government is promising to “stand united” with Toronto in the wake of a deadly mass shooting Sunday night.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke with Premier Doug Ford and Mayor John Tory early Monday to convey his condolences following last night’s attack, and offer the full co-operation and any assistance required on behalf of the federal government. Ford said later in a radio interview that the federal government had promised an unspecified amount of funding to help police combat gun crime in Toronto.

What we know from Toronto police:

A 10-year-old girl was killed in the shooting.

An 18-year-old woman was killed in the shooting.

The suspect, age 29, was named Faisal Hussain. He died at the scene. The special investigations unit is investigating.

13 other people were injured in the shooting; three were said to have undergone life-saving surgery at St. Michael’s Hospital; following the incident.

A spokesperson for federal Public Safety minister Ralph Goodale said that there is no national security component to the investigation.

A senior source told iPolitics that the conversation between Trudeau and Ford was a productive discussion.

The phone call between the two leaders was followed a few hours later with a meeting at Toronto City Hall between Mayor John Tory, federal Organized Crime minister Bill Blair, Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders and Premier Ford.

None of the men spoke with reporters on their way into the meeting, but in brief statements at the beginning of their talk they promised to work together and support the city’s first responders.

“We stand united,” Blair said. “All three levels of government stand united behind our first responders and the city of Toronto. The safety of our citizens is our highest responsibility, we all know that the only way that that can be achieved is together.”

Blair — a former Toronto police chief — was only last week promoted to cabinet, where he took on the responsibility of tackling organized crime.

“We are here to bring all the support and resource that is required to keep Toronto a great, safe and livable city,” he said.

Earlier in the day, the prime minister tweeted his support for the victims of the violence.

“The people of Toronto are strong, resilient and brave – and we’ll be there to support you through this difficult time,” Trudeau said.

My thoughts are with everyone affected by the terrible tragedy on the Danforth last night in Toronto, and may the injured make a full recovery. The people of Toronto are strong, resilient and brave – and we’ll be there to support you through this difficult time.

The shooting came just hours before city council was supposed to debate proposed steps to address the spike in gun violence hitting the city. According to The Star, council agreed to postpone the debate until Tuesday.

The proposal from city staff includes a recommended request for up to $30 million from the federal government to support community crime and violence intervention programs. It also recommends the city ask the Ford government for up to $15 million for enforcement initiatives.

Council has not yet decided whether to move ahead with those proposals.

The federal government has set aside $327 million over the next five years to fund programs designed to address criminal gun and gang activities. It also tabled legislation in March to tighten the sale and tracking of firearms.

Ford has previously committed to giving police more resources as the city grapples with a wave of gun violence this summer, he repeated that promise in the legislature on Monday.

“We will make sure our police have the tools and resources they need to do their jobs, and we will work with our municipal and federal counterparts to identify, apprehend and convict those who commit, or plan to commit violence,” Ford told the legislature earlier on Monday.

My heart goes out to the victims and loved ones of the horrific act of gun violence in Toronto. Thank you to all the first responders for acting quickly to help everyone affected.

The premier called the shooting a “brazen” attack and pledged that justice will be served and answers found even though the suspected shooter is dead.

“As Premier, my commitment to you is that I will do everything in my power to keep our neighbourhoods safe. We will make sure our police have the tools and resources they need to do their jobs, and we will work with our municipal and federal counterparts to identify, apprehend and convict those who commit, or plan to commit, violence,” he said.

“What happened on Sunday night was despicable. But I hope it is also a catalyst for all of us to come together — to protect our communities against this kind of outrageous violence.”

After Ford spoke, the leaders for each of the other parties also extended their condolences to the victims of the shooting.

Outside the legislature, Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said she hoped any plans that the government come up with go beyond supports for police.

“Solutions are not just about policing tools and policing services,” she said. “There’s a much bigger picture around people being able to have opportunity and ability to build a decent life.”

Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said given that safety is a “top priority” of government, he hoped Ford would give Toronto the money it could be asking for as early as Tuesday.

Federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer called the shooting “heartbreaking and disturbing” and federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said he was “devastated” by the news.

The family of the suspect released a statement Thursday evening, saying that Hussain suffered from psychosis and other mental health challenges. Here’s the statement in full:

“We are at a terrible loss for words but we must speak out to express our deepest condolences to the families who are now suffering on account of our son’s horrific (act).

“We are utterly devastated by the incomprehensible news that our son was responsible for the senseless violence and loss of life that took place on the Danforth.

“Our son had severe mental health challenges, struggling with psychosis and depression his entire life. The interventions of professionals were unsuccessful. Medications and therapy were unable to treat him.

“While we did our best to seek help for him throughout his life of struggle and pain, we could never imagine that this would be his devastating and destructive end. Our hearts are in pieces for the victims and for our city as we all come to grips with this terrible tragedy.

More from iPolitics

38 comments on “In wake of mass shooting, Trudeau and Ford discuss working together against gun violence”

Ok, I can forgive Ironballs his conspiracy theories given his propensity to extremism on the gun control issue, but that doesn’t explain why your ipolitics comments section routinely rejects perfectly good posts for no reason. Please fix this if you wish people not to give up in frustration. Thank you

Quote: ” I’ve always thought there was a certain Victorian elan to couching an insult with the word Sir. Yes, well we’ll have to head down to the gentlemen’s club, remove our hats, and settle this with some dash and impetuous ardor.”

Aah yes, the good old days. We could share a cigar and a whisky down at the old boys club and afterwards retire to the gardens to do the “gentlemanly thing” ,and settle our differences with dualing pistols at 50 yards.

Hey, if you guys one day get your way, neither of us will have to worry…..
…oh, I forgot, not unless you are a bad guy with the only gun around…:))
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PS: The last eight posts i’ve tried to send in other threads have not gone through…what the hell is wrong with ipolitics software…this is getting annoying

This Baxter has an agenda. The last thing he told me is that his spam filter catches and weeds out Russian Bots. Russian bots? With their proxy servers, cyber trail cover skills, and VPN blockers, how would he know who Russian bots are exactly? I mean, with certainty. Does he have Robert Mueller’s team? Putin targeting Canada?

This used to be one rockin’ web site that was THE place to be for Canadian politics. James Baxter’s sick, twisted, magic turned it into a ghost town (largely). Except for gun stories.

He once made the remark that there would be no comment posters here at all from the general public, if he had his way…ideally. He can deny it but I’ll never forget reading that comment from him.

Normally, you would never make these comments for fear of being banned forever from a website, but after what this guy has done to this website over the last few years, I don’t frankly care.

Oh, I wish it were so. There’s no vast conspiracy or agenda. We go where the government’s psychic energy is flowing. Right now, in the dog days of summer, that’s trade, guns, immigration and, though much cooled since the spring, pipelines. If you accept that the big 6 ministers are Finance, Public Security, Foreign Affairs and Trade, NRCAN, Health and Treasury Board/Procurement, that tends to be where we keep the keenest eyes. That means guns, immigration, NAFTA, pot, Indigenous and Phoenix. Add in a few vacations and some reporters being poached to other institutions, that’s our news coverage in these days of pretty slim pickings.

It is interesting that since Trudeau took power in 2015 that there has more shootings, gun violence, bomb threats, and innocent people being run over. There also has been more alt left violent neo nazis groups.

If these bleeding hearts really wanted to get tough on crime then they would use the notwithstanding clause and tell the SCC that the Jordan decision is revoked. When you let murderers, rapists, drug dealers walk away free with no consideration for the victims or public safety then the justice system is a total failure. Police keep chasing the same criminals and get nowhere with a justice system that would rather Hug-A-Thug than lock him up. Judges have no accountability to anyone and yet our politicians let them make laws instead of interpret them. Who are Judges accountable too? Answer no one and our pathetic politicians have no guts to call them on it.

No Robert Campbell, your views supporting easier access to guns are in the minority. Whether you like it or not, Canada is a left of centre progressive communitarian country. Yes we have a sizeable conservative minority (30-40% depending on your definition), but even about half of that are fairly moderate fiscal conservatives who simply favour balanced budgets, lower taxes, and only having government intervene in the economy when necessary, not your libertarian types who favour minimalist government. Canada also has a strong anti-American tradition and we generally tend to go in the opposite direction of the US as most Canadians want us to be less not more like them. I agree tougher gun control isn’t the only solution but it is part of the package. I don’t see why trying to make our gun laws as restrictive as Australia or UK is a bad thing especially considering they have lower murder rates even though overall crime rate is about the same in Australia and higher in the UK. Heck we could even go as far as Japan where gun ownership is practically non-existent and despite having four times as many people has half as many murders as we do. I’ve always though we should compare ourselves to the best not the worst.

It’s a little early to be talking about this sort of thing, and I do feel most uncomfortable doing so, but I cannot let your incorrect assumptions rest without comment.

First, I am not Libertarian, and I am NOT for a relaxation of current gun laws; only the passage of laws that actually accomplish something, and NOT the “feel good” stuff before Parliament. Most legal Canadian owners feel the same way and will support laws that truly work to prevent gun violence in their many forms. And you’ve been told this many times before but willfuly choose to ignore it. But proof, not limp, emotional excuses and feeble statistics that don’t take into account our society, don’t cut it.

And in spite of your previously stated extreme views on abolishing gun ownership in total, this is not a viewpoint accepted by millions of legal gun owners in this country. So like it or not, your wishful thinking won’t happen unless our current crop of politicians turn out to be mental flyweights….

But I much prefer to wait until we find out exactly what this horror was all about before passing any kind of judgement. If this turns out to be an act of terrorism, you will have egg on your face for sure….

Spare us the gun-nut BS talk about how it’s too early to discuss this, and we must wait. Waiting time for your type is until the next shooting. Then after the next shooting it will be further postponed until the shooting after that. The bodies are still warm you know, and we’re still in the thoughts and prayers stage, right? (which is a very long stage) Isn’t that how it works?

Miles Lunn has never called for the abolition of gun ownnership, and you’ve never met a piece of gun control legislation that you didn’t hate. So spare us the crap.

You really are a classless piece of work sometimes ! Both you and Lunn have called for virtually the complete abolition of legal firearms ownership in past posts, and yet you deny it. And you use this latest horror to promote your personal agenda.

During the ’70’s, I worked on gun control legislation for the government and only stopped when I found out their real agenda wasn’t to stop misuse, but to simply add control to legal ownership for it’s own sake. They had no idea how to deal with the problem any more than today’s politicians do. Their dishonesty was then, and still is today, prevalent in everything they do regarding this issue.

Millions of people who own firearms are the only ones affected on a day to day basis by controls, so your assertion they don’t want to see workable controls is nonsense. What they DON’T want to see is emotional and unworkable solutions being proposed in the heat of the moment by those who politically find themselves on the knife edge to do something !

I realise you and I come at this issue from diametrically opposed viewpoint, but please try and stay factual. Your knowledge of firearms is abysmal and this doesn’t add to your credibility in these discussions…” semi-automatic machine guns”…???? One has to have at least a basic knowledge of things before you can comment on proposed solutions….

According to his family, Mr. Hussain suffered from depression and psychosis his entire life. Such a terrible existence. Having worked in mental health support for many years, it was clear that many of our fellow citizens suffer from serious mental health issue and at times, should not be at large. Two things arise from this tragedy: more mental health treatment beds are needed so that when depression or psychosis escalates, treatment is readily available and that individuals with severe mental health issues such as psychosis should not be allowed to have or use guns of any kind.

I fully agree with you that mental health is a major problem and often goes undiagnosed for a lot of people. I must say, it’s a pleasure to see a post that is so pointedly on target for the real cause leading to such tragedies.

Assuming he is not shown to be a terrorist, the other big unknown here is how an individual with years of diagnosed mental health problems would ever be able to pass the rigorous screening in order to get a legal firearm. We will have to wait until all the facts are in of course, but I would guess that he didn’t get this gun legally

But if he did get this firearm through legal means, then someone in the RCMP should be fired plain and simple for not doing their job !!

Sorry, I’ve never seen a gun jump off a wall and shoot someone. It takes intent and guns (and everything else inanimate) don’t have the human emotion to create intent.

But I know what you trying to say (albeit very poorly). A firearm in the hands of a mentally unbalanced person can create a very real risk of harm. But all your assumptions over your many posts make no differentiation between those who legally possess them and those who don’t. So they amount to nothing more than generalisations.

Continue to lump both groups together and you will “lose” by default. Start to use some common sense and cut all the banning crap, and maybe someone will start to take you seriously….

Have you never questioned why it is that a person who has struggled so badly with mental illness all his life to the point of it being untreatable — was able to acquire a handgun in Canada? How did that happen? Do you think there may be holes in our gun laws? If he acquired it illegally, then how did that happen and how can we close that avenue of acquisition?

Human beings are fragile. There will always be those among us struggling with mental illness. Robert Campbell types want to make it easy for those unfortunate souls to acquire a handgun. Don’t let him.

The issue of an unbalanced individual having legal access to firearms IS the big issue here. And there may well be holes in our gun laws, BUT the point is we have to wait until all the facts are in before we can draw ANY conclusions about what may or may not have failed. You of course simply jump to the worst conclusion and then make outrageous and insulting personal statements suggesting I (and others) want to see that happen.

Setting aside your stupidity for the moment, and knowing what I know about the process to obtain restricted firearms, it is a reasonably safe assumption that with his established history of mental illness, that he DIDN’T go through the government screening process. Your spouse or other party you live with has to be advised of what you are requesting, and have to sign off on it. His parents have indicated they didn’t know he had a gun. They would have had to sign off on this request to purchase, and it’s likely they wouldn’t have, given his history of mental illness. Further, given the state of his health, the authorities would have looked VERY closely at this request even if his parents had signed off on it. Although technically speaking it’s not legal, often times the authorities will insist you belong to a formal gun club before allowing purchase of a restricted firearm. Also, they have every right to see how you plan to store this gun for protection against theft.

So assuming he got the gun elsewhere, he did so totally illegally. And this has nothing to do with legal ownership ! And yes, to the best of our ability we must close off that avenue of illegal access but that is far easier said than done…

But you know this. You simply adhere to the old adage – throw out nonsense and hope that “bullsh** baffles brains”

I’ve always thought there was a certain Victorian elan to couching an insult with the word Sir. Yes, well we’ll have to head down to the gentlemen’s club, remove our hats, and settle this with some dash and impetuous ardor.

Your agenda loses throughout the developed world with one exception — the United States. We see the results of your agenda there, and I don’t want that agenda brought here. It feels like it’s here already in Toronto.

While the adults talk lets get Saunders out there raiding more pot shops. That should get the violence under control. While these maniacs are arming Toronto cops are raiding pot shops. Great use of resources. Saunders has to go.

And so speaks a long time gun control extremist with an agenda to push !

Why don’t you wait and see what the FACTS of this issue are before becoming just another know-nothing “talking head” in the media. Changes to the laws of the land MUST be made based on facts not emotion. At the moment, we don’t know if this was another act of terrorism, or a mental case gone wild with a legal OR illegal firearm. Aiming your anger at legal gun ownership may help ease your paranoia, but it won’t solve any REAL problems, but will definately cause other problems.

Past posts show you are so focused on what you call “gun nuts” that you can’t deal with this issue in any kind of reasonable manner. Lets leave any “solutions” until the facts are known.

Frankly, I’m embarrassed by your self serving comments at a time when we all have to come to terms with this terrible tragedy….

Hey polaris, how does such a profoundly mentally ill person like the Toronto shooter manage to acquire a handgun in Canada? You seem to want to make light of this because it was a pistol instead of something else. That matters? Does this fact somehow win the day for your guns-for-all argument?

This is just about a weekly thing in Toronto now. I don’t want to hear anything about thoughts and prayers and hearts going out. There needs to be anger instead. To heck with thoughts and prayers. I am thoroughly embarrassed as a Canadian and I want more done about guns.

I completely agree with addressing some of the root causes through social spending, but that’s a longer term thing. That won’t help in the short run. Gun control will.

This is likely the result of the changes that Stephen Harper brought in over a decade. In his time, Harper steadily weakened our gun laws in ways that continue to make Canadians more vulnerable and communities more dangerous.

For starters, firearms flooded into Canada after Harper dismantled the federal long gun registry in 2012 — nearly two million rifles, shotguns and handguns were imported for retail sale across the country over just five years, federal records showed. Then Harper never implemented rules on imported gun marking regulations on top of that.

That surge of firearms, with a total import value of $751 million, rose 79 per cent over the number of firearm imports from the start of 2007 to the end of 2011, customs information held by Statistics Canada revealed.

Harper also put an end to regulations that, in theory, would have regulated gun shows.
Those 1998 regulations had never actually been put into force, because the long gun registry, which set up a paper trail for the buyers and sellers of rifles, made them moot. So they remained on the books, but dormant.

But when Harper dismantled the gun registry, those gun show regulations suddenly became relevant. Then Harper killed those too.

Ontario Chief Firearms Officer Chris Wyatt told The Canadian Press that gun shows started becoming centers for the sale of illegal and stolen firearms, as they are in the U.S., after the gun registry and gun show regulations were killed by Harper.

Never forget that man (Harper), or his party for that matter, and toughen up Canada’s gun laws further. If the Liberals want to think of this as an important wedge issue that will help them, then do so. Gun nuts represent a very small percentage of Canada’s population, and this is an issue that will help them.

Exactly. Tighter gun control is only part of the puzzle but it is a component and evidence shows looser gun laws mean more murders. Gun lobby loves to cherry pick examples to prove it doesn’t work rather than look at the overall data as opposed to finding a few exceptions as every rule has exceptions to it. And I agree being for tougher gun laws is a winning issue for the Liberals. Especially when events like this happen more often. It may not be the number one issue for Canadians but I suspect the Tories would lose more than gain by advocating looser gun laws. Most who want looser gun laws are already hardcore conservative supporters who will vote for them no matter what. Amongst the swing voters they need to pick up to win, most favour tougher gun laws. Otherwise those in Ontario who voted for Trudeau in 2015, but Ford in 2018 is who the Tories need to gain and being pro-gun makes it less likely they will pick those voters up. About 30% will vote conservative no matter what while 60% are unlikely to unless they make a breakthrough in Quebec (Quebec either embraces or rejects Tories no in between and usually the former, 1930, 1958, 1984, and 1988 being the four times the province embraced them in the last century) so it comes down to the 10% on the fence and if they won those 10%, they win a majority, lose them and they form a weak opposition.

This used to be a winning issue for the federal Progressive Conservatives too. It was Mulroney’s PC’s who brought in new gun regulations after the 1989 Montreal massacre. They deserve a lot of credit for that. Too bad they’ve been replaced by the Conservative (C) Reform (R) Alliance (A) Party (P). CRAP.

Aaaah, Progressive Conservatives with Canadian values are still out there somewhere. They must be because I’m corresponding with one right now.

Exactly and in fact in both the UK under John Major and Australia under John Howard brought in tougher gun laws and both are conservatives. Yes our culture is different than both but I would argue your median Canadian voter on guns is probably a lot closer to your median Australian and British voter than median American voter.

I am one indeed. Progressive Conservatives today are now more or less your swing voter as the while the Tories have swung rightward, Liberals have swung leftward so they are without a home and tend to swing against whichever party they dislike. They are the types who voted for Wynne in 2014, but Ford in 2018, Harper in 2011 but Trudeau in 2015. Note neither Ford or Harper are former Progressive Conservatives but my point being since no party represents them they tend to bounce between the two and whichever party does better amongst them usually forms government. Only in Atlantic Canada are the still strong although in BC, the BC Liberals have at least avoided the more reactionary elements you see in the federal Conservatives and while few old PCs there the federal Liberal element sort of cancels out the Reform element in the party. Manitoba PCs for whatever reason haven’t seen as big a shift to the right as neighbouring provinces and they seem to play a bigger role in it the other conservative parties west of the Ottawa River.

I left you a response on your Manitoba analysis but apparently it became another one of the ipolitics wordpress posted comments that just disappear forever even though it had nothing but bland generic language.

So you rightly tell one guy to spare the crap, then turn around and politicize this yourself…?? Well done…stand up and take a bow.

Handgun laws were never relaxed under the previous government. Yet it didn’t prevent this individual from obtaining one in one way or another.

Oh, and in the event you think of labeling me a gun nut or extremist, while I do own firearms, they have always been registered (when required), and stored in full compliance with any laws of the day….and I do not own handguns.

Only in your lopsided biased mind ! The “battle” here (as always) is to ensure our laws do everything practical to keep guns out of the hands of those not qualified while respecting the concerns of honest people. The other side of the battle is to keep proposed changes in law to continue to be based on real world facts, and not the biases of the anti-gun types. You raw gun haters make it a battle only because you can’t see that we have to have our own Canadian solutions, so you look south and deliberately distort things to validate your own pre-determined solutions. You think anyone with a concern about gun legislation is a “gun nut” when they are only expressing legitimate concerns as they have every right to do, since they are very much affected.

And no, handguns did NOT become easier to get under Harper. What was made slightly easier is the ability to move to a club, gunsmith or a show without getting another piece of paper. They did nothing more than that. And since those screened and licensed folks are not a problem, it was seen as a refinement of the law to cut down the paperwork for authorities.

So far, the only thing you’ve said I agree with is the fact that for some reason, ipolitic posts just seem to totally disappear. I have had half a dozen do that for no reason in the last week on a variety of different issues/posts.

I’m glad that I’m at least not alone. Many times we put a lot of thought and some research into our posts and replies, whether the other side agrees or not. To just have them disappear…….

I left you some interesting information on Australia’s gun buy backs and amnesty programs. They were very effective, but the whole reply to you on that topic is gone with the wind. You may have left replies to me and others worth considering that will never be seen either.